Muddy Water
by countrygirl21
Summary: A story about one of the gang coming home and wanting something he never thought he would want. Baptism. Song fic.


Muddy Water

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_I own nothing. The story and song belong to their owners respectively._

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_September 28, 1997_

He got out of the big rig on a early September morning just out of the city limits in Tulsa. He squinted up at the early morning sun that shined brightly into his face; he took out a pair of battered sunglasses and put them, the sun instantly more tolerable. He nodded back to the driver and thanked him. The man nodded back to him and turned off onto the road he headed for. The man looked up at the early morning sun and adjusted the strap on his duffel bag and started down the empty road. It was a long walk back to his home town.

_Eighteen wheeler dropped me off at that city limits sign  
Sunday morning sunlight hurt my eyes  
It's a long way from where I been back to my home town  
But there's a man in me I need to drown  
_

He had come home to set things right that he had done in the past. For the first time in over thirty years he was coming back to Tulsa. It had been a long, hard and difficult road he had traveled to get were he was and now he was ready to leave the man he had once been behind. He grinned in the early light at the irony of it all. Former hell raiser Dallas Winston was coming home to get saved.

_Baptize me in that muddy water  
Wash me clean in amazing grace  
I ain't been living like I oughta  
Baptize me in that muddy water  
_

He made his way to town and crossed over the tracks that led to his childhood neighborhood. He stopped for a brief moment and looked back at the house that was his childhood home. Only now a small well-kept white house with a flower bed beside the porch stood were a depilated heap once was. He shook his head and continued on his way down the road til he stopped at a dirt road with a old white-washed church still stood. He couldn't believe even after all this time they still hadn't paved the church road.

_Made my way to the church at the end of the dirt road  
Dragging what was left of my soul  
I could see the saints out back on the river bank  
And I could hear forgiveness calling out my name _

He started up the walk to the church doors, thinking back about what led him here. He hadn't died from the gunshot wound like everyone had thought; he had come pretty close but had survived by the Grace of God. Only he hadn't seen it that way; he had lost his best friend and his brother that night. So when the judge sentenced him to a year of probation and therapy; he hadn't taken his chance to do it right and six months into his probation he was arrested for drunk driving and grand theft auto and was sentenced to five years in prison. When he got out he spent the next twenty years of his life in the bottle and in and out of the State Pen.

_Baptize me in that muddy water  
Wash me clean in amazing grace  
I ain't been living like I oughta, no  
So baptize me in that muddy water_

It wasn't until he was sitting in a hospital emergency room six years ago that he opened his eyes and saw what he was doing. A missionary had come into the ER the night, he had a broken hand and sat down next to him in the waiting room and they started to talk.

_Baptize me in that muddy water  
Wash me clean in amazing grace  
I ain't been living like I oughta, no  
Baptize me in that muddy water _

That night had been a changing night. He got his hand stitched up and walked back to his apartment and sat up the whole night thinking back about his life. The next morning he threw out every beer and whisky bottle in his apartment and walked the six blocks to his first AA meeting. Now it was time for him to complete it. He opened the church doors and walked in. The pews were empty with the exception of one in the front row. The man turned at the sound of the doors opening and the sounds of his heavy boots on the hardwood floor. He stood up and looked him up and down as he approached the front pew. He was a little over average height with prematurely graying hair. He gave a chuckle, "I was startin to wonder if you got lost or something." He shook his head, "Nah, it took me a while to find the road again, but I ain't lost any more."

_Baptize me in that muddy water  
Yeah, wash me clean in that muddy water, water  
In that muddy water__  
Baptize me_

The other man smiled and nodded his head knowingly. He nodded to the door, "You ready? Everybody's around back." He nodded and shrugged out of his jacket and plaid shirt, leaving him in a old undershirt. "You lead the way."

Ponyboy grinned at him and led the way back to the church and down a old worn path. They walked for a good twenty minutes before they got to a clearing that opened up into a large pond he remembered them all swimming in as kids. A few of his friends he had made and kept over the years were there. And so was the guys that had been his brothers in everyway but blood. Steve had a touch of gray at his temples but still looked the same in pants, boots and a clean automotive shirt on. Only instead of it saying 'DX' it said 'Curtis and Randle Automotives'. Soda was dressed the same and still had that contagious grin and good looks. Two-Bit and Darry had a few laugh lines around their mouths and eyes that wasn't there the last time he saw them, neither were the wedding bands gleaming in the morning light.

And there standing in the water with his robes floating around him, was the preacher baptizing him. Reverend Timothy Shepard. Tim had found God's calling one night a couple of years after Dallas was sent to prison, when a traveling priest walked into his hospital room and gave him a bible and a prayer that he wouldn't die from his injuries he got from a three-car pileup. Dallas grinned at his old friend and fellow former hell raiser as he slowly walked down into the water and made his way to Tim's side. Who would have ever thought two of Tulsa's biggest bad boys would be reformed?

He grinned back at him, "You ready?" His smiled faded and he swallowed and nodded tightly. He took a deep breath and Tim leaned him back in the water.

He came back up with a gasp of air, a cleanliness and lightness in his heart and soul that wasn't there before.

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Hi, I haven't been on here in years and it all been updated. So please be kind if you see mistakes, this thing is different from when I used to use! I heard this song on the radio ages ago and couldn't help but think of Dallas when the story popped into my head. What if he had lived, and how would he have dealed with his grief and life after Johnny died?


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